Huntress Year One

A little disclosure might be in order here: I loved the Huntress, the original one, Helena Wayne, first introduced about 30 years ago by Paul Levitz and Joe Staton. That Huntress, Helena Wayne, the daughter of the Earth-2 Batman, was infinitely more interesting than Batgirl on Earth 1 (if you don't have any idea what that previous sentence was talking about, trust me--it's complicated, but suffice to say that comics readers of the '70s and '80s were well-versed in theories of different dimensions and alternate universes). That Huntress (by the way, her mother was Catwoman) practiced law by day and took the law into her own hands by night. She was both tough and human; not one of the impossibly superpowered humans who, after a short stint with a sensei somewhere, are able to do just about anything a story requires them to. So I approached Huntress: Year One with more than a little trepidation. I hadn't taken a liking to the post-Crisis Huntress (again, complicated, but in the mid-'80s, DC issued a series called Crisis on Infinite Earths that wiped out its alternate universes and left just one earth and one incredibly long and convoluted history intact), so I was resistant somewhat to any rendition. To offer a quick recap: In the new universe, the Huntress is now Helena Bertinelli, daughter of a slain mafia boss. Her family is massively tied in to a large criminal organization, but Helena, being a good person, breaks with her ugly family past and fights crime in Gotham City as the Huntress. Her weapon of choice: a crossbow. Her plan of action: whatever it takes, even if that means killing, a viciousness that is not shared or condoned by Batman. This puts her in the Dark Knight's bad column, and he doesn't take kindly at all to her running loose and acting as a vigilante in his city. But Huntress: Year One veers off slightly (and wisely) from the previous reboot of the character to provide a more interesting character. The jumping-off point--daughter of a mafia family--remains the same, with Helena the sole survivor after her parents and brother were gunned down before her eyes when she was 8. Only the cross hanging from her neck saved her, as the assassin had a change of heart upon looking at it and her. After being orphaned, Helena is sent to Sicily, where she learns how to hunt and be a woman who is not fearful of any man. The story here begins with Helena, now 20, just days away from her next birthday--and the large trust fund that will come with it. Writer Ivory Madison, herself a former lawyer, is clearly a student of several of the better mob stories. She makes Helena ruthless, cunning, smart, and, above all, tough, but also a "good Catholic girl" who frequents church regularly. The opening scenes of Huntress: Year One play out somewhat stereotypically, but it sets the scene for Helena's eventual rebirth as a costumed heroine (or hero--Helena thinks a heroine is just someone who gets rescued by the hero of the story, and she definit

I am a big JSA fan and the elimination of the Huntress from DC's Continuity by Crisis was one of the sorest points in this otherwise excellent series. I have seen the revamped character in JL and on TV's JL Unlimited series on Cartoon Network and while I thought most of the good points of the character were preserved it was not a character I thought I'd want to read about in background. I was given a copy of this and was very impressed with it. Huntress is very much the same character but with more depth. Her motive is not just family business but personal history. The writer has made her different than the other women in "Batman family" and that is good. Huntress makes mistakes and has rough relationships with some other DC characters but it fits based on the new characterization. Comic characters should not be interchangeable just by change their costumes and Ms. Madison does it by contrasting Barbara Gordon (Batgirl / Oracle) and Selena Kyle (Catwoman).

Ivory Madison is a terrific, exciting storyteller... and this is a beautifully realized graphic novel. Looking forward to much, much more. ---Kemble Scott, author of SoMa

I was going to post a longer review here, but I've decided I'll keep it short. I'm a comic fan, I'm a Huntress fan, and I'm picky. But for ONCE I get to read a comic series that's written for me, the female reader. Ivory's treatment of Helena is honest, straightforward, and makes a lot of sense. This story isn't about what is or isn't 'canon'. This story is about what makes sense for the character. Too many treatments of the Huntress in the past have been blatantly two-dimensional for the purposes of making her fit in better to a given story. Well, this is her story again. It revolves around her and it does so in a very engaging fashion. (On that note, I got a sick thrill out of the more than slightly biased portrayal of Barbara Gordon. Needless to say, I've never been a Batgirl fan. So there.) And I say this with much past Huntress reading under my belt. Huntress Year One will never match the raw, spine-tingling origin story penned by Joe Cavalieri all those years ago, but it certainly does come a lot closer than most treatments of the Huntress that I've read. Feminist or not, I identified easily with Helena in this book- I've never been easily given to female stereotypes or habits myself, and it was nice to see that echoed on the page. Helena is just a human being who wants desperately to have a meaningful, solid relationship with someone, and is constantly thwarted. Which is why her romantic relationship is so incredibly important to the action- after all, who we are is often defined by the relationships we have. Rather than a single action (the death of her parents) being the ONLY defining moment in Helena's life, Ivory Madison gives us a more intricate tapestry to draw from on what drives Helena Bertinelli. And as a final thought, Ivory left plenty of 'echoes' in this story of the Helena Wayne we knew and loved. Helena Bertinelli's role was, and always will be, that of the estranged daughter to the Dark Knight.